"Unfortunately so much commentary is self-serving or sensationalist. Pete Wargent shines through with his clear, sober & dispassionate analysis of the housing market, which is so valuable. Pete drills into the facts & unlocks the details that others gloss over in their rush to get a headline. On housing Pete is a must read, must follow - he is one of the finest property analysts in Australia" - Stephen Koukoulas, MD of Market Economics, former Senior Economics Adviser to Prime Minister Gillard.

"Pete Wargent is one of Australia's brightest financial minds - a must-follow for articulate, accurate & in-depth analysis." - David Scutt, Business Insider, leading Australian market analyst.

"I've been investing for over 40 years & read nearly every investment book ever written yet I still learned new concepts in his books. Pete Wargent is one of Australia's finest young financial commentators." - Michael Yardney, Australia's leading property expert, Amazon #1 best-selling author.

"The most knowledgeable person on Aussie real estate markets - Pete's work is great, loads of good data and charts, the most comprehensive analyst I follow in Australia. If you follow Australia, follow Pete Wargent" - Jonathan Tepper, Variant Perception, Global Macroeconomic Research, and author of the New York Times bestsellers 'End Game' and 'Code Red'.

"The level of detail in Pete's work is superlative across all of Australia's housing markets" - Grant Williams, co-founder RealVision, author of Things That Make You Go Hmmm...one of the world's most popular & widely-read financial publications.

Friday, 3 February 2017

Trade surplus biggest on record

Surplus shoots the lights out

Wow, not something you see every day!

As recently as October some were arguing that there could be no trade surplus for Australia - something or other to do with contract prices lagging spot prices.

Whatever, by December the trade surplus had hit stratospheric levels at more than $5.8 billion.

There has never been a month even remotely like it for Australia.

Even after the seasonal adjustment the $3.5 billion surplus was well over one billion dollars higher that anything we've ever seen before, across decades of data.

The November surplus was also revised up massively to more than $2 billion.

Not surprisingly the boom was driven by coal and iron ore exports, although LNG export values are now also coming to the party, and will continue to contribute more through 2017.

Annual exports to China topped $80 billion, and were up by 7 per cent from a year ago.

This is very welcome news for Western Australia (iron ore), and Queensland (coal, LNG), while New South Wales coal exports also boosted the state's monthly merchandise trade balance.

On the services side, the tourism boom rolls on.

The record trade result lit a bit of a fuse under the Aussie dollar, but is great news for Australia and its AAA-rating.